I was approved for a Fidelity Rewards Credit Card, but the limit is only $2k. There is an intermediate screen between the application submission and final acceptance where I had the opportunity to decline or accept their $2k offer. I did neither and left the screen as is while I immediatley called the underwriting reconsideration line.
I spoke with a very nice underwriter that explained regardless of whether I accepted or declined the offer, an HP had already been performed (I hadn't gotten any monitoring notifications of an HP). Thus, you can't "save" yourself an HP by declining the offer. Declining an offer simply puts the application in an inactive state and nobody can do anything at that juncture other than do a new application which would result in another HP. Alternatively, had I accepted the offer, there wouldn't have been an opportunity for the underwriter to do anything either as the acceptance would have traveled down a different "approved" workflow.
What the underwriter did was verify my information, noting that she could see my other 2 high-limit ($15k+ each) US Bank credit cards and perfect pay history. She said Elan Financial is a subsidiary US Bank thus they have this level of visibility. Finally, she said she doesn't see why the system only allowed $2k, but will route this over for manual review and I should expect a response in 4 days. The last action was to close the browser window WITHOUT clicking accepting or declining the offer.
Not sure if this will change the outcome in anyway, but hopefully this gives insight into the Elan processing for those maybe in a similiar situation in the future.
I'm struggling to accept a new tradeline with only a $2k limit if they don't up the limit significantly but at that same time I hate to "waste" an HP. Thoughts?
DPs: Income >$300k, FICO 8s 760s, Utili <1%, Inqs 3, 20-year Fidelity Brokerage relationship, 30 year US Bank Relationship.
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@whocares I totally feel your frustration. With that kind of income scores and relationship already established I would have a hard time accepting that approval as well. Hopefully the manual review yields something different.
Since that card is a Visa Signature it seems to me that the starting limit should have been at least $5k (mine was when I opened it under B of A 6 years ago) but as all of us here on the forum know....that rule is not exactly set in stone.
BUSINESS 
Congratulations on your offer. Hopefully, you'll get a better one when they call back.
With that kind of income and DPs, I wouldn't bother with a $2,000 tradeline.
Congrats on your Elan Fidelity Rewards approval, @whocares, although it was somewhat disappointing. According to multiple postings I've seen on My Fico, Elan/US Bank may tend to give a little lower SLs, but we've had members successfully recon to much higher limits immediately after the initial approval. Usually, they had to accept a second hard pull, but it often resulted in a huge increase. In your case, I'm not sure if they would do the second pull since you called underwriting, so this will be an interesting case. Please keep us posted!
With time and usage, I'm pretty sure Elan cards have been known to grow pretty well, so accepting the $2K limit might be the best course of action, especially since you already took the initial HP.
@whocares I totally understand your frustration, as the SL isn't commensurate with your income level. However, Elan seems to give higher SL's on this card when there are established assets with Fidelity, and when you have minimal new credit accounts reporting. Did you fund your IRA/brokerage/HSA/etc prior to applying for the card, and did you aquire new tradelines recently? Elan doesn't march to the US Bank beat and seems to care less about that relationship and more about the relationship with Fidelity, as least within the scope of this card product.
Well got an update. They held firm at the $2k limit. I opened 4 new accounts in the past 12 months that all have CL limits greater than $10k and that was the main factor. Although important, my income and Fidelity account balances didn't seem to make a difference in this case. Clearly they don't seem to like that many new accounts.
I'm still debating whether to keep it. Anyone know if this card grows automatically quickly as I'm not a fan of taking HPs for CLIs?
